Air Force News :: Features

ABOVE: Pilots FLTLT Glenn Salmon and FLGOFF James Pears and Flight Engineer WOFF Anthony McFadden command the flight deck of the AP-3C Orion aircraft.

AFTER a successful deployment to northern Scotland, elements of 10SQN have arrived back at RAAF Base Edinburgh.

Two 10SQN AP-3C aircraft and 83 personnel, including Crews 4 and 5, joined aviators from Canada, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, France and the United States in Exercise Neptune Warrior 06 between June 18 and July 1.

The element represented 92WG in the 44th Fincastle Competition, embedded in Neptune Warrior.

Neptune Warrior gave the Wing an opportunity to train for complex combined maritime operations.

Crew 5 was selected from an inter-squadron fly off against 11SQN to represent 92WG in Fincastle 06. Leading the Crew 5 team were aircraft captain FLTLT David Titheridge, TACCO FLTLT Erin O’Neill and FLTLT Darren Prior as Sensor Employment Manager.

The Commander of the Task Unit, WGCDR Craig Heap, was very satisfied with the performance of 10SQN.

“92WG clearly demonstrated our capability and professionalism, in the air and on the ground,” he said. “It was a very successful deployment.”

Neptune Warrior, formerly known as the Joint Maritime Course, was conducted in often-ferocious weather in the north-west Scottish training areas.

Comprising 40 ships and submarines and 50 aircraft, the exercise was the latest in the series of major UK-led maritime training exercises, held three times a year off Scotland.

The overall aim of the exercise was to provide joint collective training in a multi-threat maritime environment

The exercise was conceived during WWII to help the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force develop their combined anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities.

Fincastle began in 1961 as a bombing competition between Australia, the UK, Canada and New Zealand. Over time, it evolved into an ASW competition meeting the strategic needs of the four nations.

This year Fincastle was expanded to include anti-surface unit warfare, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance components.

The waters off northern Scotland provided an intense multi-dimensional battle space with simultaneous air, surface and sub-surface threats providing challenges to aircraft and personnel.

The participating warships appreciated the support provided by 10SQN crews. On one exercise sortie, Crew 4 was called upon to simultaneously monitor and report the positions of two hostile submarines, 20 miles apart.

With the aircraft flying low, searching for an elusive submarine in the early hours of the morning in Sea State 7 (rough seas), maritime patrol operations were a team-based activity.

FLTLT Nigel Eves, the Crew 4 TACCO, said this aspect of the exercise benefited his crew.

“I think we gelled together over the five or six sorties we participated in,” he said.

“We seemed to develop very well, but the more sorties you do and the more intensive the flying, the easier it becomes to work as a team.”

The other critical half of the team was the 10SQN maintenance element, providing an outstanding service to keep the aircraft flying. Two shifts worked around the clock, launching 90 per cent of the planned missions. To deploy to the other side of the world and support a complex exercise such as Neptune Warrior was a considerable achievement.